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ThePokerCapitalist has some very disturbing news for the poker community, HSBC is “exiting” their poker clients. I’ve heard rumours of this in the poker community but only recently have I been able to obtain proof as well as more details surrounding the rationale. I was tipped off by a former professional poker player in Canada (who now plays infrequently), that HSBC no longer wanted his business because of his involvement in “the online gaming industry”. You’ll see further along in this article a redacted version of this information. This is a disturbing development for any and all poker players who have bank accounts with HSBC and leaves them at the whim of the bank. Furthermore, this is a disturbing development for any and all HSBC clients worldwide.

How does a player make a million dollars playing poker? Undoubtedly, it is tougher to do this today than it was ten years ago but its still achievable. The biggest difference today is the level of refinement required to make serious money at poker tables today. Previously a fairly basic strategy was good enough, but today’s poker games present a much more significant challenge.

There aren’t that many online poker players with over a million dollars in earnings but I have spoken with a few over the years and here are the insights gained.

Figuring out how to quit playing poker can be a difficult challenge for many poker players – both casual and serious. This is a topic that has interested me for some time. I wrote previously about when to quit playing poker but I never tackled the how…. Before we dig into how to exit the game its important to understand why we entered it :). (more…)

Developing your own bluffing style is an important part of becoming a sophisticated tight aggressive poker player. If you know ten high quality poker players you probably know 10 different bluffing styles. It’s important that you develop a bluffing style that works well for your game and is uniquely tailored to your personality and playing style.

Libratus poker bot isn’t just beating humans its crushing the best humans. This new and improved poker bot takes advantage of a number of improvements over previous generous bots. Libratus poker bot is now able to take into account the card removal effect when bluffing. Many of you probably don’t even know what the card removal effect is :). This is simply taking into account the altered probabilities that result from knowing your hole cards. Apparently, Libratus poker bot is able to implement a wide range of varied pre-flop and post-flop strategies that were previously associated only with sophisticated regulars.

The Jesus Seat as it has become known is one of the most important and underrated aspects of table selecting. One of the reasons most players struggle to win at poker is because they don’t understand some of the final details such as the importance of the Jesus Seat. Heck, there are probably a good number of players who don’t even know that the term means.

There are multiple forms of table camping that occur in todays online poker games, and in some cases it is making it challenging to find a table to play at. At times I will see dozens of tables open at high stakes with players simply camped out waiting for a fish. One of the most classic cases of high stakes players opening dozens of tables is when the legendary “Scout326” makes an appearance at PokerStars. That guy has fed the high stakes games at PokerStars for years and literally lost millions. Over time, the strategy has increasingly become known as a common and effective strategy for finding weak players across multiple networks. Years ago when table selection was much less of an issue table camping was almost non-existent. Today, it is prevalent at all games across almost all stake levels.

Telling people that quitting PokerStars was the best poker decision I ever made may surprise some people. After all, they are the world leaders in online people. Lets take a look at some of the pro’s and con’s of the various websites available.

PokerStars Is The Hardest Website To Win On

This has been the case for at least a decade. The caliber of play on PokerStars is higher than on any other website that I have every played on. I say this having played well over 1 million hands of online poker in my life on a wide variety of different websites. Given the importance of table selecting in poker, quitting PokerStars makes sense. (more…)

The 6bet is one of the most underated moves in deep stacked poker (both cash and tournament). For players who aggressively use the 4bet they will find some players begin to pick up on this. In particular, if you have some kind of a history with a player the 6bet can be a valuable move. Of course, it is also a costly move when it doesn’t work out ;). I have found the play to be highly valuable if you pick your places carefully!

Poker bots are an enormous problem in todays online poker world. I have warned previously about the dangers of anonymous poker tables and now increasingly bots are becoming a major issue. When you combine the element of anonymity with the possibility of poker bots being ran on a frequent basis (which is happening) that is a huge concern for players. Unfortunately, poker bots have become better and better in recent years and I suspect are now good enough to be making enormous sums of money online.

For those of you who follow my blog on a frequent basis you will notice that I have not been posting on a frequent basis lately. This is because earlier this year I founded a company called GoFetch, which is a rapidly growing pet services marketplace company. I sit with our team of developers everyday and I have no doubt in a matter of a few weeks to months we could have a profitable poker bot running. This is not something that interests me but it is a reality.